Top 10 at UAE box office

Which movie moved to top of the cinema charts?

By
Time Out Dubai staff
16 August 2011

Disappointing debut weeks for new releases Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Surveillance, Ghost Machine and Prom meant film fans flocked to see a comedy that continues to prove popular.
But was it Kevin James’s rotund Zookeeper or Jennifer Aniston’s rabble of Horrible Bosses that moved to top spot at the box office? Read on to find out ...

10 Surveillance
Bouncing back from a critical and commercial flop is hard work for the most seasoned of directors; for Jennifer Lynch it must have been near impossible. Lynch made her first film, Boxing Helena (1993), at the age of 24, securing financing and a name cast largely on the strength of her father David’s reputation. It was reviled, and with good reason: it’s a hopeless mish-mash of saccharine romance and psychosexual drivel. That Lynch has now managed to secure funding for a second feature, even 16 years after the fact, is an achievement in itself. That the film in question is pretty good is little short of a miracle. The set-up craftily echoes her father’s work, as a pair of FBI agents arrive at a small-town sheriff’s station to investigate a multiple murder. They place the witnesses under camera surveillance and talk them through the events of the previous day. The story unfolds in flashback, with our sympathies shifting until it’s unclear which characters are worth trusting: the cops are corrupt, the investigators sinister, even the little girl’s family may have something to hide. Lynch directs with a restrained, unfussy style, her camera picking out the clean lines of both the bare interrogation room interiors and the stark rural landscape outside. The cast is solid, particularly dramatic stalwarts Ormond and Pullman as the investigating agents and producer Kent Harper as a power-crazed deviant deputy. While the narrative is hardly original – it meanders to a predictable but juicily malicious climactic twist – Surveillance is never less than a compelling watch. Tom HuddlestonWeekly box office: Dhs52,775Weekly admissions: 1,758Total box office: Dhs52,775Total admissions: 1,758

9 Prom
This new Disney flick cuts to the chase, hooking the plot around the prom plans of straight-laced Nova, who believes that prom is an essential ritual and is devastated when her decorations go up in smoke. With the prom committee busy, she accepts the help of rebellious Jesse (McDonell), who’s been ordered to assist by the principal. If you’re a parent hoping to convince your child that teenagers don’t drink, smoke, swear or take drugs, this is for you. Anna SmithWeekly box office: Dhs100,576Weekly admissions: 3,056Total box office: Dhs100,576Total admissions: 3,056

8 Mr. Popper's Penguins
It’s remarkable that it’s taken 83 years for Richard and Florence Atwater’s grade-school mainstay to hit the big screen, though this charming Hollywood update takes several liberties with the source. Mr Popper (Carrey) has gone from a house-painter to a divorced Donald Trump wannabe, whose deceased dad bequeaths him a feathered friend. A subsequent mishap brings the gaggle to six, but before Popper can ship them out, his two kids insist on keeping them. While the story is formula cornball, director Mark Waters sells it confidently, handling the unruly penguins as amiably as he handled Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday. The flock’s floppety shenanigans are hard to resist, thanks to a seamless blend of live action and CGI, as well as the innate anthropomorphic charms of Carrey’s waddling buddies (the movie easily takes advantage of their ability to ape Charlie Chaplin). Carrey holds his own with a remarkably game performance, working clever asides into underwritten scenes. Without this comic ringleader, Mr Popper’s Penguins would just be for the birds. Kevin B LeeWeekly box office: Dhs111,914Weekly admissions: 3,722Total box office: Dhs3,504,764Total admissions: 111,748

7 Transformers 3
Football-faced fratboy Sam (LaBeouf) is called back into action when a crashed spaceship is discovered on the Moon, causing exiled robot Megatron to come out of hiding and restart the Transformer war. The rest of the plot is all but impossible to follow, although the action sequences look great. Tom HuddlestonWeekly box office: Dhs179,624Weekly admissions: 3,992Total box office: Dhs14,844,142Total admissions: 344,251

6 Ghost Machine
A strange mesh of horror and sci-fi genres, British flick Ghost Machine follows a group of thrill-seeking nerds as they steal an advanced computer system from the military, but what starts out as fun soon sees them pitted against the machine’s super-advanced artificial intelligence. Will they manage to survive? The real question here is whether you can endure enough of the film to find out their fate. Holly SandsWeekly box office: Dhs139,725Weekly admissions: 4,617Total box office: Dhs139,725Total admissions: 4,617

5 Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
Based on the Italian horror comic series Dylan Dog, one-time Superman Routh swaps his red underpants for a detective badge to play the title character, whose specialist area is paranormal cases. The film has been one of the biggest flops of 2011. US box office takings were a dismal US$1.2 million, while global figures have hovered around US$4 million – a wincing failure for a film that cost US$20 million to make. Holly SandsWeekly box office: Dhs194,999Weekly admissions: 6,329Total box office: Dhs194,999Total admissions: 6,329

4 Bridesmaids
Bridesmaids is the brainchild of Saturday Night Live alumnus Wiig. She plays Annie, a mid-thirties single woman who finds out that her sole remaining unmarried friend, Lillian (Rudolph), is getting hitched. As maid of honour, Annie takes on the task of wrangling a gang of bridesmaids through the wedding preparations. Gamely tackling everything from sly satire to broad slapstick, Wiig’s performance is remarkable. Her scenes with Rudolph are the heart of the film: it’s hard to remember such a warmly convincing depiction of female friendship. It doesn’t all work: some of the more extreme gross-outs feel like petty one-upmanship (‘You think The Hangover was bad? Check this out…’). But mostly Bridesmaids is a triumph, an effortless blend of bad taste and good humour with an often very touching emotional core, all centred around one of the finest star-making comic performances in recent memory. Tom HuddlestonWeekly box office: Dhs264,946Weekly admissions: 7,452Total box office: Dhs2,136,879Total admissions: 58,574

3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
This is an action movie, plain and simple: from the breathless opening heist on Gringotts magical bank to the hair-raising battle of Hogwarts that occupies most of the second half, this is crammed to the rafters with sword-swinging, expletive-hurling, dragon-riding magical mayhem. There’s even some business with Alan Rickman and a snake that’ll have even the toughest Potterphiles hiding behind their popcorn buckets. Tom HuddlestonWeekly box office: Dhs397,572Weekly admissions: 8,976Total box office: Dhs10,353,451Total admissions: 237,132

2 Horrible Bosses
Small-screen comedy icons Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston unite for this darkly comic tale of friends who team up to murder their evil overseers. They’re joined by Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx in what looks to be a promising flick. TOWeekly box office: Dhs334,290Weekly admissions: 9,082Total box office: Dhs3,407,009Total admissions: 98,343

1 Zookeeper
Fans of the sight of James falling over (nine times in 100 minutes!) and shockingly brazen product placement will get a big kick out of Zookeeper, but this deranged comedy will leave everyone else scratching their heads. So animals can talk, they just choose not to? And they decide to break millions of years of silence to help James get laid? Sigh. Matt SingerWeekly box office: Dhs344,962Weekly admissions: 10,977Total box office: Dhs3,104,467Total admissions: 95,922